Department of History

EUH-4584: MEDIEVAL RUSSIA

Professor: Dr. Florin Curta

Office: 202 Keene-Flint Hall

Office hours: Thursday 12:45-1:45, or by appointment

Phone: (352) 273-3367

E-mail: fcurta@ufl.edu

   Southern Conference on Slavic Studies

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Course description

    It has long been accepted that there was in fact no such thing as "Russia" in the Middle Ages. Instead, this is a course about the history of Russia in the original Latin sense: a history of the land ruled by people known as the Rus. As such, this is not a course about the modern state of Russia, but about the lands now included in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. All three states currently claim the legacy of "Kievan Rus," despite the fact that the traditional center of that medieval polity is now the capital city of Ukraine. The city of Kiev was the key to the economic, political and cultural life of the Rus, but the history of the lands of the Rus' is not the same thing as the history of Kievan Rus'. This course will try to move away from a "kievocentric" point of view of medieval Russian history, which has been the object of much nationalist manipulation in the recent past. Following a chronological order, we will look, each week, at the questions and problems raised by the study of this region, and at some of the primary sources from which historians draw their analysis.
 

• Janet Martin, Medieval Russia, 980-1584. 2nd ed. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. ISBN: 978-0-521-85916-5 [hereafter Curta].
• Basil Dmytryshyn, Medieval Russia. A Source Book, 850-1700. Gulf Breeze: Academic International Press, 2000[hereafter Dmytryshyn]

Reading journal. A quick glimpse at the list of weekly topics (see below) will no doubt convince you that this is a course with serious readings. You will be expected to digest a substantial amount of information in a fairly short period of time. The best way to do this is to keep a journal. Before every class meeting, you will post an e-mail message on my address (on top of this syllabus), in which you will discuss briefly the readings for the coming meeting, ask questions and/or make comments, raise issues that need clarification, etc. All e-mails should arrive at least 12 hours before class meetings. Be sure to keep your postings to a reasonable length (175 to 250 words long). I do not want you to spend too much time on them, but I expect you to give an articulate presentation of your thoughts. Needless to say, I also expect you to check on correct grammar and spelling before clicking on "Send." Because the journal is designed to demonstrate your efforts towards an initial understanding of the readings, I must have in time one report for each class meeting, every week. The reading journal represents seventy percent of your final grade, 2.33 percent for each entry. I will send written feed-back (via e-mail) on weekly entries midway through the term. Reading reports cannot be made up; you simply need to have a journal entry for every class meeting. Be aware that missed reports may result in a substantially lower grade.

In-class assignments. The remaining thirty percent of your final grade will be based on five short assignments in class. All five will consist of multiple-choice, map, matching, short-essay questions, or a combination thereof. Besides material covered in class lectures, the in-class assignments will focus primarily on primary source readings from the Dmytryshyn book.  A careful study of those texts is necessary for a good performance at the test. Because in-class assignments are announced, I do not intend to grant any make-ups, except for emergencies (e.g., illness), in which case I may ask for official justification.

Grades. The following scale will be used in determining your final grade
 
 
 

 Week 1 (January 4-8): Introduction 

• Tuesday: A history of words: Rus', Russia, Russian; see a map of Uppland (with Roslagen marked in red) and an image of Roslagen
• Thursday: Where was medieval Russia? The geography of Eastern Europe; see maps of Russia, the northwestern region, the Volga River drainage area, the basin of the river Dnieper, and Volhynia within Ukraine; see also images of the Ural Mountains, the Novgorod region, Lake Ladoga, Lake Onezhskoe, the Valdai Heights region, the river Volga (at Rzhev), the river Dnieper (in Kiev), Smolensk, Yaroslavl, the Kremlin of Moscow, the Lutsk fortress in Volhynia, Bukovina at the foot of the Carpathian Mountains, the valley of the Oka, Desna, and Kliaz'ma rivers, Nizhnii Novgorod, an elk, and a marten

 Week 2 (January 11-15): Sources

• Tuesday: The Russian Primary Chronicle and historiographic problems of medieval Russia; see the Lord's prayer in Old Church Slavonic with samples of Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabets; see the portraits of Nikolai Karamzin and Aleksandr Pushkin, the creators of literary Russian; see a page from Ostromir's Gospels and the Arkhangelsk Gospels; read Metropolitan Ilarion's Sermon on Law and Grace and the beginning of the Russian Primary Chronicle; visit the monastery of St. Michael in Vydubichi; see a map of all the Rus' towns in which birchbark letters have been found, and an example of a gramota; browse the Pravda russkaia (short version).
• Thursday: Archaeology and the rise of the medieval state in Russia; visit Riurik's Stronghold near Novgorod; see a map of an excavated block of medieval Novgorod with a sample of the deep stratigraphy of the site; see samples of the pottery and leather artifacts found in Novgorod; visit the region of Lake Kuben and the burial mounds in Gnezdovo

Week 3 (January 18-22): Slavs, Khazars, and others

• Tuesday: Eastern Europe in the early Middle Ages (6th to 9th centuries) [Dmytryshyn 2-6]; read the paragraph in Jordanes' Getica which mentions the peoples submitted by Ermanaric; see an image of the site at Shatrishche and the belt mounts typical for the Ryazan'-Oka group; see a distribution of sites of the long-barrow group in northwestern Russia and a picture of a sopka; see a wooden bowl with a bear-shaped handle from Vanvizdino and examples of bronze figurines used by local shamans along the Viatka and Kama rivers
• Thursday: In-class assignment #1. The Khazars; see portraits of Arthur Koestler and Itzhak Ben Zvi; see maps of Khazaria and of the conflicts in its history; see a view of the recent excavations near Astrakhan on a site (wrongly) believed to be Itil; see an aerial view and a model reconstruction of Sarkel, as well as a dirhem struck in Khazaria with the (Arabic) inscription mentioning Moses as the prophet of God; see examples of the curved sabre introduced by Khazars to the military equipment of the East European steppe lands

  Week 4 (January 25-29): The coming of the Varangians

• Tuesday: Eastern Europe during the Viking Age [Dmytryshyn 9-21]
• Thursday: Vikings in Eastern Europe [Dmytryshyn 6-9]; visit Staraia Ladoga and see a runic inscription (with "twig runes"); see examples of Viking-age oval brooches and swords; see also examples of dirhams struck in Suwar; visit the Ustyurt Plateau

Week 5 (February 1-5): From the conversion of Olg'a to the conversion of Vladimir 

• Tuesday: The Rus foothold on the Middle Dnieper: Igor, Ol'ga and Sviatoslav [Dmytryshyn 22-30]; see a map of the Pecheneg migration, a description of the Greek fire, and an example of Byzantine silk; visit Chernihiv and read about the finds in Shestovytsia; visit Birka (Sweden) and see an example of shaven scalp similar to Sviatoslav's; see a map of Dobrudja with the location of Nufăru and visit Silistra
• Thursday: Vladimir and the conversion of Rus' [Martin 1-23; Dmytryshyn 30-35]; visit Quedlinburg, Przemyśl, and Chersonesus; see a map of Turov and the plan of the Tithe Church in Kiev (with a reconstruction); see an example of a Viking-age pectoral cross, examples of silver earrings rom the area inhabited by the Radimichi, a gold and a silver coin struck for Vladimir

 Week 6 (February 8-12): Martyrs and mercenaries (1015-1125)

• Tuesday: The Riurikid dynasty and the Rus' principalities [Martin 24-46; Dmytryshyn 47-72]; see a facsimile of the first pages in Thietmar of Merseburg's chronicle; see a coin struck for Sviatopolk Vladimirovich and another struck for King Knut (Canute) the Great; see also a statue of St. Olaf; visit the Cathedral of the Savior in Chernihiv, the Church of St. Sofia in Kiev (with examples of surviving mosaics), the Church of St. Sofia in Polotsk, as well as the Golden Gate in Kiev
• Thursday: In-class assignment #2. Kievan Rus' and medieval Europe [Martin 46-63]; see a map of eleventh- and twelfth-century Rus'

Week 7 (February 15-19): Kievan Rus' society 

• Tuesday: Economic and social relations, law, and written culture[Martin 64-81 and 85-99; Dmytryshyn 36-41]; visit the Church of the Assumption at the Monastery of the Caves, the Church of St. Michael at the Vydubichi Monastery, and the Church of St. Michael of the Golden Domes in Kiev; see (modern) examples of pisanki, an example of Rus' silver ingot (grivna), the icon of the Mother of God in Vladimir, and an enameled temple pendant from the Tithe Church
• Thursday: Church in Kievan Rus' [Martin 81-85; Dmytryshyn 41-47]; visit the Monastery of the Caves

Week 8 (February 22-26): The last century of Kievan Rus' (1140-1240)

• Tuesday: Peripheral principalities and dynastic relations [Martin 100-138; Dmytryshyn 72-92, 105-114, 119-132]; see a map of the Rus' principalities in the twelfth and early thirteenth century; see the Abbey of St. Emmeram in Regensburg and a Romanesque aquamanile (water-holder); visit the castle of Halych and Zawichost on the Vistula; see maps of  medieval Novgorod (showing the Prussian Street in the "Cathedral Side") and Moscow; see the statue of Iurii Dolgorukii in Moscow and a portrait of Andrei Bogoliubskii in the fifteenth-century Radzwill Chronicle; visit the Church of the Intercession of the Veil on the Nerl (with a carved image of King David on one of the exterior walls), Kostroma, Unzha, Nizhnii Novgorod, and Smolensk
• Thursday: In-class assignment #3. Rus' and the steppe nomads [Martin 138-148]; visit the Mirozhskii Monastery near Pskov with its church dedicated to the Transfiguration of the Savior, and Princess Evfrosiniia's Monastery in Polotsk with its church dedicated to the Savior (with a later example of kokoshniki)

Week 9 (March 1-5): The Golden Horde

• Tuesday: Invasion and conquest [Martin 149-161; Dmytryshyn 97-99 and 147-167]; see maps of the Mongol Empire and of the Mongol invasion of Europe; visit the Cathedral of the Assumption in Vladimir
• Thursday: Mongol suzerainty and Rus' accommodation [Martin 161-174; Dmytryshyn 168-179]; see nineteenth-century version of the execution of Mikhail of Chernihiv in Sarai (1246); see an illustrated Life of Alexander Nevskii,  a clip from Sergei Eisenstein's 1938 movie; and the Order of Alexander Nevskii (For Toil and Fatherland) reinstituted by Stalin in 1942; visit the fort built by the German Knights at Kopor'e 

Week 10 (March 7-12): Spring break (no classes)

• Tuesday: Dynastic and economic recovery [Martin 175-186; Dmytryshyn 99-105, 114-119]; see a map of the northern Rus' principalities during the first half of the fourteenth century; see an aerial view of Tver and a view of Kostroma; see views of Pereiaslavl' Zaleskii and of the citadel of Pskov strengthened by Daumantas; see a list of the Golden Horde khans, a view of the ruins of the Isaccea fortress, and a silver coin struck in Nogai's name
• Thursday: Intradynastic competition and the rise of Moscow [Martin 187-219; Dmytryshyn 190-198]; visit Moscow and see an icon of Metropolitan Peter, who was buried in the Cathedral of the Assumption; see a coin struck for Boleslaw-Iurii II

Week 12 (March 21-25): The rise of the Danilovich 

• Tuesday: Lithuanian expansion, Dmitrii Donskoi and Kulikovo [Martin 220-238; Dmytryshyn 179-183 and 198-209]; see a map of Muscovy and portraits of Timur Lenk (Tamerlane) and Jogaila (Władysław Jagiełło); see a modern rendition of the battle at Kulikovo as a clash between infidels and Christians and before the battle; see a view of  Lissner's interpretation of St. Sergius' blessing of Grand Prince Dmitrii; visit Kulikovo Pole and see a medieval illustration of Tokhtamysh's 1382 sack of Moscow; see a portrait of Vytautas (on his seal) and a map of the Tatar khanates; see a modern rendition of the battle of Grünwald and an icon of St. Sergius of  Radonezh
• Thursday: Late 14th- and early 15th-century Muscovy [Martin 239-260]; visit the monasteries of the Holy Trinity in Sergiev Posad, Andronikov, Simonov, and Chudov (Miracle) in Moscow, St. Cyril's Monastery near Beloozero, and the Soloveckii Monastery on an island in the White Sea; see an example of the script invented by St. Stephen of Perm to render the language of the Komi; see the Church of the Transfiguration of the Savior on the Ilina Street in Novgorod, with an image of Christ Pantokrator painted by Theophanes the Greek in its dome; see an icon of Prophet Elijah painted in the early 15th century in Novgorod; see a dialogue between Theophanes the Greek and Andrei Rublev as imagined by Andrei Tarkovskii in his 1966 film, Andrei Rublev; see Rublev's icons of the Savior (ca. 1410) and of the Old Testament Trinity (ca. 1411)

Week 13 (March 29-April 2): Unification and centralization of Muscovy

• Tuesday: Dynastic strife and territorial expansion [Martin 261-281; Dmytryshyn 214-220, 222-243]; see dirhems struck for Ulugh Muhammad, a denga struck for Ivan of Mozhaisk, coins of Vasilii II, and seals of Casimir IV of Poland; see a nineteenth-century representation of the 1477 removal of Marfa Boretskaia and the veche bell from Novgorod; see a map of the Crimean khanate; 
• Thursday:  In-class assignment #4. Church and political legitimacy [Martin 281-297; Dmytryshyn 243-261]

Week 14 (April 5-9): Muscovite domestic consolidation 

• Tuesday: Muscovite economy and administration [Martin 298-330; Dmytryshyn 261-275] 
  
• Thursday: Political integration [Martin 330-335]

Week 14 (April 12-17): Foreign policy and foreign trade

• Tuesday: Muscovy's relations with its European neighbors [Martin 336-347]
• Thursday: Muscovite relations with the Tatar khanates [Martin 347-363]

Week 15 (April 19-22): Ivan the Terrible

• Tuesday: In-class assignment #5. The political system and the foreign policy under Ivan IV [Martin 364-415; Dmytryshyn 276-308]